Despite the global economic slowdown, Syria still lures a growing number of foreign visitors in 2009. 370,000 tourists have visited the country in May 2009 against 326,000 during the same period of time last year. European visitors keep representing an important share according to the Syrian Tourism Ministry.

According to Zawya, '[...] the total number of tourists during the first five months of 2009 rose 12 percent to 1.9 million from 1.7 million a year earlier in the same period. "Out of that number of tourists, 118,000 were Europeans", the report said, adding that their number rose by 24.21 percent compared with a number of 95,000 in the same period a year earlier.'